


Stand Up with Me

by steadfastasthouart



Series: Watford without Watford [1]
Category: Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow series - Gemma T. Leslie
Genre: Ballroom Dancing, Bets & Wagers, Courage, Fear, Friendship, M/M, SnowBaz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-30
Packaged: 2018-03-20 04:44:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 7,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3637167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steadfastasthouart/pseuds/steadfastasthouart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The eighth-year ball brings way more than an unenthusiastic Simon--or anyone, really--bargained for.</p><p>It all starts with a friendly wager.</p><p>*** Watford and its residents belong to Rainbow Rowell, author of the book <em>Fangirl</em>, in which they first appeared. ***</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Bet

“I hate this part.”

“Me too. It's awful, isn't it, to be the one who approaches? Can't we just sit in the corner and drink lemon squash and make a mock of the others while they dance?”

“No, Penny,” Simon said resolutely. “Not this time. It's our last dance at Watford. It's time we joined in.”

“All right, then. Let's have at it.” She heaved herself up with such obvious dejection that Simon felt sorry for her. Despite the dazzling gown and whatever spell Penelope had cast to make her hair shimmer like the air above a flame, she emanated the disgust of a five-year-old forced to sing at a grown-up party.

Simon wanted to help. “Look. What if we make a competition of this?”

As he'd known she would, Penelope perked up. “How so?”

“Let's be each other's first, okay? I mean—wait.” He bowed stiffly. “I mean, may I have the honor of your first dance, Ms. Bunce?”

“Certainly,” she chuckled, opening her dance card.

“Excellent. Then, we'll each race to fill out the remainder of our card—no more than two dances with any one person.”

“And...?”

“And then, whoever finishes first gets to fill in the loser's card.”

“So, if you finish first ...”

“...I can order you to ask anyone I choose to fill the last spots in your program.” He half-nodded toward Corbin Torkington, who was skulking behind the punch bowl watching Penelope.

Penelope's look was equal parts horror and mischievous delight. “You wouldn't! But, oh, I could...” She broke off, grinning. “Ooh. Let's say you have to ask _earnestly and enthusiastically,_ okay?” Her face flushed with excitement as she scanned the room. “You're on.”

They shook on it, feeling the familiar buzzing glow between their clasped hands as they muttered _Cross my heart and hope to die..._

“Ready?” she asked.

“One mo.” He penciled _Penelope Bunce_ next to the 1 on his card, then tucked it back into his lapel pocket. “Ready.”


	2. The Consequences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When it comes to asking for a dance, motivation is the better part of valor.

The orchestra was playing Beethoven's  _Emperor_ concerto, and Simon felt almost kingly as he sauntered through the crowd. It was so easy to forget that he wasn't the small, insecure boy he'd been when he first set foot in Watford's ballroom so many years ago. Thank the good Lord Byron for all the mirrors; every reflection reminded him what the others saw—a young man, not a boy, tall and broad-shouldered, clear of eye and with a face that, if not chiseled, at least had a vaguely statuesque quality when set off by a fitted, pressed suit instead of his usual rumpled school-clothes.

The reflections and the bet gave Simon the confidence to stride toward a whole sparkling group of gowned girls and ask each for a dance. He'd added five names to his card when a magnificent Agatha—alabaster and golden in a foamy dress that looked and smelled like fresh jasmine flowers—rushed up to inform him that she'd reserved dance four for him, so he'd better not let someone else into the slot since her card was at this point otherwise entirely filled and inflexible. This took some sorting and blushing and apologies to Carys Fetherhew, who was really very lovely about the mix-up and was happy to exchange for seventh, but that meant he needed to swap her friend Fiona Yoo into eighth, and then—how was it possible?—here came Penelope, beaming, her dance card extended.

“All ten!” she gloated. “Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair.”

He looked. Ten dances reserved. It was true that she had doubled up a few names, but that was fair. The only reason he hadn't was hubris. He'd thought he could beat her with singles.

He groaned. “I'm sure you've worked out who I'll have to ask.” He had been so certain he'd win that he hadn't even thought of who she'd pick, but now it seemed obvious: Penelope ribbed him every day for turning a blind eye to the ridiculous but kind Leondrina Russe, who spent all of Practicum mooning at him from across the room. This was her chance.

“I have.” Her eyes twinkled behind the glass of her lenses. “In fact, he's just behind you.”

“ _He_?” Simon was startled. Certainly, same-sex dancing was common enough at Watford balls, but he hadn't danced with another boy since his first ball, when he and Osiris Wallis had polkaed raucously through the middle of a waltz till the monitor shooed them and stuck them to seats with the Wallflower spell for the remainder of the dance.

“Yes, he.” She winked, reveling in the suspense. “Go ask Mr. Pitch for the honor, will you?”

Simon choked on his lemon squash. Oh no. He risked a glance over his shoulder. A few yards back, leaning against a column and head cocked as if he were weighing the price of skipping out on whatever conversation he was in, Baz didn't look in any way approachable.

“Just one dance, or ...?”

“As many as he'll give you.” Simon hesitated. “That's the deal. Go. Now.”

 


	3. The Request

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simon pays a debt of honor.

When you've lived with someone so long, you start to think you've already embarrassed yourself in front of them in every possible way. They've seen you changing, heard you fart in your sleep, pulled your hair out of your face that one time you woke up puking and patted you roughly till the shuddering stopped. You think you've crossed all those bridges of awkwardness.

But Baz had been so distant this year. The nightly bickering had dwindled to a snide remark or two when Baz crept in after midnight and, often, out again shortly thereafter. Simon still followed him even though he couldn't quite say why. It used to be from curiosity: Where was Baz going? Then it was fear: What if Baz lost control of himself? And finally, it was something else. His hunting was inhuman and strange, but gods, it was a thing to see. He was so fast, and so powerful—he'd caught a buck, once, when he'd been too stressed out by exams to hunt for a week, and Simon still remembered the swiftness with which Baz had struck, grasping the huge animal still as a housecat in his arms, and the naked relief on his face when he finally reared back from the buck's dripping neck and allowed the dazed beast to stumble away.

Sometimes he allowed himself to admit that Baz must know he was watching. Baz could smell a rabbit from a mile away. There was no way he could miss the smell of his roommate. There was also no way they could ever talk about it.

* * * 

Tonight, though, in the fluttering light of a thousand candles, Simon felt like the hunter.

He turned slowly to look at Baz. Baz's conversational partner was reaching with her glossy manicured hands to straighten his lapel. _I'll bet he hates that_ , Simon thought, chuckling to himself. Baz lifted the hand and kissed it lightly, murmuring to her, and something in Simon tightened uncomfortably. The girl turned to walk away; as Simon drew nearer, he saw that it was Carys, who was seventh on his own dance-card.

Baz straightened up when Simon came close. Damn. Baz had always been taller, and Simon didn't want to have to look up at him. It wasn't just humiliating; it felt wrong.

“Excuse me,” Simon said reluctantly, and the palm of his right hand stung like fire. Why in hell had they sworn on _earnestly and enthusiastically_?

“Snow?” Baz eyed him suspiciously.

“Was that Carys?” he asked, dodging the point. Ouch, the pain. He needed to get through this.

“Yeah, the lovesick ninny. I'm giving her the eighth.”

“Do you—do you have the ninth free?”

Baz studied him, looking for a trap. “Why do you ask?”  


“You want to dance with me?”

“Oh, come, Snow, surely you know better than that.” There was a laugh somewhere in Baz's eyes, Simon was pretty sure, but he wasn't sure whether it was at his own expense. “You're not a Pitch, of course, but neither are you a caveman. Even for you, the rudiments of etiquette still apply.”  


Simon looked back, as steely as he could be while gritting his teeth at the searing heat in his palm, till he couldn't take it anymore. “Fuck off,” Simon muttered to his hand, then plunged. He bowed deeply, in the process noticing the impeccable drape of Baz's wool trousers, then, looking up into Baz's eyes, he asked, “Mr. Pitch, will you do me the honor of standing up with me for the ninth dance?”

A quiver that might been revulsion flickered across Baz's lips, but, perhaps bred too well to say anything else, he let his answer emerge in a slow, speculative drawl: "It will be my pleasure, Snow." 

Instantly, the pain in Simon's hand melted into complete and stultifying relief. Without the agony, it was almost easy, when Baz had produced his dance card from an interior pocket and flipped it open with clinical deliberateness to write him in, to ask, “Can I have the tenth too, while you're at it?”

The mingling period was almost over. As if looking for an out, Baz offered Simon a whiskey squash, spelled to look identical to the lemon drink, and walked away. As the music soared toward its crescendo, Simon risked a glance at Baz, who was now leaning against another column on the far side of the room. Eyes closed, head tilted back, he looked like a man entranced—as if the music's effect on him were the same as that of a musician on a violin string or clarinet reed.

 


	4. The Dances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, there's dancing! And an uncomfortable feeling that looks a lot like jealousy.

 

With a bit of clapping and polite talk, the dances began. Agatha Wellbelove and Archibald Firestein made first couple, of course, with the rest of the eighth-years prancing around them to the delicate trills of a minuet. Penelope crowed up into Simon's ear: “You were marvelous! I didn't think you'd go through with it!”

“Well, I couldn't not, could I? Not with that _hope to die_ pledge.”

“Oh, I forgot about that. Well, well done anyway. You should've seen Pitch's face when you bowed.”

“Oh, no need. I can imagine it perfectly: Impassive, wry, with a touch of open disdain.”

She laughed as he spun her, oblivious to his embarrassment. “Nope. Just shocked. Do you know, I'd never seen his eyes open all the way before now. I think you surprised him, Simon, and I think he liked it.”

“Well, forgive me if _I_ think you're lying through your teeth, Bunce,” he said, bristling. Penny teased him all the time, but he usually didn't mind. This, though. He felt a little weak inside, like he'd found the soft spot in an apple and couldn't stop poking at it. “He doesn't even wait for the ends of my sentences anymore. He just cuts in with something nasty and turns away.”

They twirled for a few more minutes without talking. He felt rigid and clunky and kept getting his feet mixed up with Penelope's. He could feel her tensing in his arms, focusing on her own steps. He remembered that she'd told him she was a hopeless dancer, but she was fine; it was his fault they kept stumbling. When the music ended and she hugged him, he felt terrible.

“Sorry I kept stepping on you,” he said. “You were great.” Dancing with her, he'd suddenly understood in some gut-deep way that, while he might never see Penny as a romantic interest, others would, in droves. He let his head rest briefly on the flickering copper of her hair.

“I didn't mean to take the piss,” Penny whispered. “Have fun dancing.”

* * *  

Fortunately, Penelope's next partner was Osiris, who seemed, like Simon, to have grown up since their dance-crashing youth, but who, unlike Simon, had attention for nothing but Penny. Watching her beam in her partner's arms in the second minuet, Simon let go of his guilt and was able to relax into the country dances that followed, with their intricate exchanges. He spun, bowed, circled, and felt bright and warm in the swirl of colored gowns and marching legs.

In the fourth dance, he found himself at the center of attention as Agatha's partner. She moved like ribbons in the wind, he thought, ethereal and so gentle in her touch that she almost felt pretend, like dancing with a memory instead of a real person. He became acutely aware of the eyes on him as he stewarded her across the floor. Once again, he sought out the mirrors' reassurance. In them, he found a man almost composed enough to belong here as Agatha's companion.

One thing about Agatha: When she gave you a spot on her dance card, it was yours. Her gaze never left Simon's face.

By the sixth, he found his brain scrambling with the infernal combinations of the reels and cotillions. He turned the wrong way once and bumped into his partner; at the next turn, he found himself face-to-face with Baz.

Baz looked at him so directly, with such haughty grandeur, that Simon just stopped for a moment, glaring back. Why wouldn't Baz move aside so they could get back to dancing? Or... wait. Baz was waiting for him, a long-boned hand upraised. Of course. This _was_ the dance. He raised a palm to Baz's and was surprised by the jolt that went through him when they touched. Hadn't he already satisfied the terms of the bet with Penny? Did he still need to act _earnest and enthusiastic_?

Across their hands, he locked eyes with Baz for one turn, the switch, a second turn. What was in Baz's long, cool look? It wasn't quite contempt, or injury, or horror, but maybe some combination thereof. When they turned to re-meet their partners, Simon's hand tingled, and he wasn't quite sure why.

The seventh, thank Pythagoras, was a waltz, and Carys Fetherhew danced beautifully. Leading her, Simon felt refined and capable, not like a supporting player as he'd been with Agatha, but like a leading man who held his own with a delightful partner. He was glad the tailor had insisted on midnight-blue for his suiting. It set him apart.

Still, he couldn't resist glancing up when he saw a familiar long hand cradled around the smooth, silk-clad waist of Fiona Yoo. Clothed in the purest black, Baz had lowered his head and was whispering into Fiona's ear, and seeing them like that, Fiona's neck arched up so that Baz's lips must be inches from her ear, Simon felt a sudden crushing ache.

In that moment, watching the pale, square-nailed fingers skim lightly over the peacock-green silk, he saw everything he hadn't done. This was his last ball at Watford, nearly the end of their formal education, and what had he accomplished? His brain held bushels of spells, sure, and he'd amassed an impressive network of up-and-coming bigwigs of the magical world, but what else? He had no idea what came next. He'd been waiting and waiting for the showdown with the Humdrum, assuming it would attack while he was still at Watford, but what if it didn't? What if, instead, it slowly leached the joy from his life, moment by moment, until he had nothing left to fight for and just gave in?

Stunned to find his mind traveling this fatalistic path, Simon shook his head. _Hogwash_ , he thought. _This isn't about the Humdrum. You're just wound up that you're still alone._

He'd dated enough, he thought. Surely someone should have made him feel what—well, what he was _supposed_ to feel. Enthusiastic. Earnest. Passionate. Tongue-tied. Tingly. The kissing had been fun, but he'd never wanted more.

Penelope assured him that the girls all regarded him as a perfect gent. Although he appreciated the reputation, it probably wasn't deserved. He knew there was a fire inside him—he'd felt it lap at him while he slept, and he'd wake in the morning tangled in the bedclothes, sweaty and hard, with the damp smell of the night forest clinging in his nostrils and an intense gratitude that Baz slept so soundly the mornings after he hunted so that he didn't (Simon exhorted the gods) hear Simon's dreams or their feverish aftermath.

Percy Bysshe. He remembered just in time that the firm torso pressed against his was Carys's, that it was _her_ warm breath on his neck and hand in his own, and he took a few deep breaths to calm his systems down before he really made an ass of himself.

“You okay?” she asked, her lovely brown face smiling up at him, and he grinned his most rakish grin, said yes.

The dance ended, and they bowed and curtsied and turned to look for their partners for the eighth. Carys spotted Baz and Fiona approaching, still holding hands.

“Fi!” Carys giggled to her friend. “You're in for a treat with Simon. He's _so_ much better than fifth-year!” Simon blushed. He'd tried to block that night from his memory. Not his proudest turn on the dance floor.

“Oh, what a shame,” Fiona said, disentangling her fingers from Baz. “I'm afraid I need to step out into the gardens, and, Carys, I—I need you. It's a thing with the stars, just came up. Simon, Basilton, you'll forgive us for making you sit one out, won't you?”

Simon nodded, flustered, unable to pull his gaze away as Fiona kissed Baz lightly on the corner of his jawbone, then tugged Carys off in a flurry of green and bronze silks.

He'd never seen, he realized. He'd never seen anyone kiss Baz, even though of course Baz dated too. He'd barely seen other people _touch_ Baz. He thought of Baz's body like something in a museum—delicate, prickly, maybe poisonous (like so many beautiful things are)—something no one would dare to even brush against, but here Fiona had kissed him, in a crowd of hundreds, like absolutely nothing.

He'd only touched Baz when something was breaking—Baz's nose, Simon's rib, and, in one particularly gory fight, a couple of teeth and a mirror. Then the last time, right after they stopped fighting and right before they stopped talking, there'd been the night in the woods when Baz's resolve had almost shattered and Simon had clutched him till the birds were chirping and the fangs had retracted and the world seemed almost livable again.

To touch Baz in peacetime, he thought wildly, was like desecration. Absurdly, he found himself wanting to lock the doors to the gardens.

 


	5. The Eighth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The eighth dance, of course, had to belong to SnowBaz.

Baz was giving him that icy look again, but now from just feet away. Suddenly Simon knew what it reminded him of: It was like the predatory aspect he saw in Baz on the nights Baz was about to hunt—a ferocious, single-minded stare that couldn't quite let anything else in. It was scary and exciting, and was probably the real reason Simon gave up so many nights' sleep watching his roommate suck blood from animals.

But this gaze wasn't quite the same. It was brighter, more aware. He looked at Simon and Simon could tell Baz saw him, wasn't looking through him like he did on the hungry nights.

Around them, dancers arranged themselves in partners for the second waltz, but Simon felt rooted. He couldn't look away from Baz when his eyes were like this, so grey, so hungry, so alert to him. He felt, suddenly, what Baz's prey must feel in the moment before Baz captured them—an immobility, a terror, and an adrenaline surge that made every inch of the body more alive than it had ever been, as it confronted the probability of imminent death.

A violin launched into the opening bars of the waltz, and pierced the webbing in Simon's mind. Almost voiceless, he said, “I guess we should get out of the way,” but Baz shook his head—a minute shake, barely a twitch, just enough that someone locked to his gaze would notice.

“Like hell I'm sitting out the Shostakovich. We're each other's next anyway.” He held his arms out. “ _Shall we dance_?”

Simon couldn't think clearly. What did that spell do? It felt like a trap. Baz always felt like a trap. Stumbling over his words, he stepped forward into Baz's clutches, as dark and encompassing as the catacombs below them. “Okay. But I lead.”

Baz's laugh was like a church-bell. How had Simon missed that, all these years? Oh—of course. He'd never been near enough to hear it reverberate. “Snow, you foolhardy wretch. You certainly do not.” His hand spread across the back of Simon's ribcage, and any protest Simon had intended to make cowered in the presence of that iron grip.

In a whirl of memory, the details of that night in the woods returned. He'd had to be strong for too many people, for too long, and that night, with a whimpering Baz crushed against him like a fallen god, he had let go and sobbed into Baz's hair at the horror and beauty of the world that had made them this way.

Now, though, he was in Baz's arms and out of danger, and it felt so good. He didn't know how else to say it. Crowley and Yeats in a summer meadow, to be held with such strength was exhilarating. There was no pinch, no crush, no pain—just a hold as unyielding as destiny. He didn't trust himself to say anything, so he lifted one hand to Baz's and with the other, took Baz's suited upper arm with all the force he dared. _I'm just human_ , he thought _, but I'm a fucking strong human, and you will not manhandle me, Baz Pitch._

But Baz didn't manhandle him. He led with ease, and from the pressure on his hand and side, Simon knew exactly where to place each foot without even thinking about it, which was quite a good thing, because really, Simon was completely incapable of rational thought right now.

With the eight percent of his brain that hadn't dissolved into the nerve endings of his hands and back, Simon puzzled over what to do with his head.

Their heights were awkward. Simon's eyes were at the level of Baz's lips. What did girls do when he danced with them? Usually they looked at him, he thought, remembering the gossamer thread of Agatha's gaze. He couldn't look up into Baz's eyes, though. He didn't trust himself. But the alternative seemed to be to nestle his head against Baz's neck, which was scarier.

Simon tried to look sideways, as if he was searching for someone. The other dancers were just spatters of color and movement, indeterminate and unimportant background, but that shimmer of red-gold had to be Penelope, and Simon made a miserable approximation of a casual smile in that direction.

The grip on his back tightened and, gods incarnate, his body met Baz's body and he thought he might collapse. Baz's low voice vibrated through him. “Look at _me_ , Snow. Resist me. Keep your frame.”

Frame, he thought numbly. Of course. A dance is a matched set of resistances. He tightened his grip on Baz's arm, felt his inability to make even an indentation into the slender muscles beneath the fine jacket. He was almost angry. _Bruise him_ , he thought. He held himself firm enough to counter Baz's pull, and somehow made just enough space that he could look up into Baz's face.

“Better,” Baz grunted, and then the full force of that grey stare locked onto Simon's eyes and Baz transformed somehow. Baz's sneer slackened and fell away, the brow smoothed and lifted above that glorious nose, and while their bodies did their fuck-all best to repel each other, Simon and Baz saw nothing but absolute belonging.


	6. The Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simon feels weak, Baz is awesome, and the Humdrum might be winning.
> 
> *** This chapter includes a few Gemma T. Leslie quotations, which are marked. ***

A dance floor is an awfully public place to fall in love, and your options are limited. You can kiss right there for all society to critique, or you can dart outdoors together and raise suspicions, or you can just keep on dancing, hand-in-hand, mere inches apart, aware that everything has changed.

Simon was debating whether he should break this stare that was filling him like molten silver in favor of closeness, in favor of his chest against Baz once again, and perhaps his head beside Baz's throat, when the candles flickered as if a wind had swept through.

At first, everyone gasped, expecting a show, but then the candles flickered again, and after the third time, snuffed out, leaving the ballroom thick with darkness.

Around them, dancers shrieked and scurried for their wands, but in the middle of the dance floor, Baz knew just what to do with a moment's privacy.

“Now?” his cool breath whispered a heartstopping inch from Simon's ear. Something seemed to be growling in Baz's chest.

Simon barely got the word out: “Now.”

A roar caught in Baz's throat as he moved one hand to the back of Simon's head and pulled him in, lips first.

There was kissing, Simon thought, and then there was this. Or maybe he'd just been deluded, had never actually kissed before. He felt Baz's mouth in every molecule of his body. His chest ached, his hands didn't know what to do. They crept up Baz's arms, clenched his biceps, tried to shake him but it was like trying to shake a shipping carton: that unyielding. And Baz wanted him so badly, he could feel and taste and smell it, and if _he_ could smell it, then what Baz must be smelling of him boggled his mind and somehow that was when he noticed how close their legs were now, and that he felt every bit of Baz's long body rigid against him, and then a tiny light came on and Simon froze.

* * *

The hall was still. The candlelight and breezes were gone and the darkness draped heavily over them. One small circle of light darted around the far end of the ballroom, flicking back and forth like a child with an electric torch, Simon thought, and as it drew nearer he felt the vortex reach into his soul and his joy whirled like ashes in wind away from him.

Suddenly, instinctively, he pushed himself forward, between Baz and the oncoming light.

It was like being miles undersea—out of the air, out of the sun, pressed in from all sides. The little light swept around dancers staggering under the downward force of the carrier's presence, and if any of them were still cognizant, they had to know—as Simon knew, had known, would never know how he hadn't predicted—was his _real_ nemesis, the Insidious Humdrum.

The Humdrum carried a silver-toned electric torch like the one Simon once clung to in his sleep at the orphanage. At the sight, Simon bit back tears. He looked into the Humdrum's broad eyes, the watchful blue of a lake in moonlight below a poster-child's thatch of unruly golden-brown hair, and he thought, desperately, that there was no way he'd changed enough to win against this despair in human form—his child self.

Seeing him, everything suddenly made sense. “You want so much,” Simon began, his voice weak and garbled in this thick air. He tried to step toward the Humdrum, but his legs weren't strong enough.

“I created you with my hunger.”* He wanted to explain—he felt that he _could_ explain _—_ but every word was fainter and stickier than the last, and no sooner did they leave his mouth than he forgot them. What could he say? How could he sever this bond before it strangled him and everything he loved?

Finally, in some pocket of his mind, he thought he'd found the right words. _I need to make him think I've moved on,_ he thought. Speaking as defiantly as he could in the impossibility of this child's placid destruction, what came out was a boast, a whine: “I'm not hungry anymore.”*

The Humdrum guffawed, a laugh like dry heaving. “If you could see yourself.”

He shone his torch at Simon, and suddenly Simon did see himself, in those dozens of jeweled mirrors that surrounded the ballroom.

He saw what he'd been trying to stuff down all evening: that under the strong body, the bespoke suit, he was still just a yearning boy scrambling to fit in.

The pressure was so great, like iron weights hanging from his shoulders, his hips, his wrists. All around him, the other dancers had collapsed to the floor in puffy piles of silk and satin and tulle. A few steps behind, though, lit dimly by the light that glanced over Simon's shoulder, Baz still stood, glowering, lips curled back in the way they did when he'd sighted his prey and was about to strike.

The Humdrum noticed too, looking from Baz to Simon. “Not hungry? You're starving for it.”

The same matter-of-fact tone, but so much creepier to hear that this _thing_ that looked like a little version of himself knew exactly how much he'd give to have Baz run those angry lips over every part of his body.

“I'm...” Simon couldn't talk anymore. His legs buckled under the strain of the mountains he was carrying on his back, and he tumbled down to his knees.

Baz had his wand out now. “ _Ladybird, ladybird,_ ” he growled, “ _fly away home_.”

Nothing happened except that the weight of the wand dragged his hand toward the ground. The wand fell with a thud. Simon expected Baz's body to follow, but no—he'd forgotten the strength. Baz was more than human, more than magical. 

Like a shackled warrior, Baz fought his way forward, past Simon, across the mosaic floor. That look. Not like he was going to feed, no—like he would kill, or die trying.

Simon was fraying inside, tearing at every seam. Gods, Baz _was_ so strong, but not like the Humdrum. It would be like attacking a bulldozer with your fists. If they fought, Baz would die.

Baz hunkered down to pounce, and Simon struggled to say anything, to do anything to stop him. _I can't just watch_ , he wanted to scream, angrier than sad, at the kind of world that would let you look love in its grey eyes exactly once before dashing it to the deeps.

The weight threatened to push him to the ground.

Simon didn't know how he did it, but as he toppled through the treacle-thick air, he managed to grab Baz by the tensed back leg, which was just ready to spring. Baz shook him off so hard that Simon's head cracked against the floor while the Humdrum laughed gently, like a tree in a chipper, and by the time Simon had got his eyes open again, the Humdrum was gone and Baz was roaring and snarling from what sounded like fathoms away.

“You might have run me off once, Tyrannus Basilton, but that was years ago.” The voice was everywhere. “I'm in the walls, now, in the stone. You feel me here, don't you? A building this old gets so tired without the magic to keep it humming.”

The air was heavier than ever, more oppressive. Simon felt it crush him face-first into the floor, felt the breath rush out of his lungs, the thoughts swirl purple and black around the edges of his mind.

* * *

Then there were arms under him, and slow slow steps, a walk that could have been miles, and a lot of shoving and swearing, and finally as the bright center of his thoughts dwindled to a pinprick, the blustery cool of a spring night.

He gasped, feeling the arms lower him onto a new-mown lawn, choked on the thin, clear air with its sweet undertones of night-blooming jasmine, gasped again, and as his brain rushed back into existence, Simon's eyes snapped open to see the silhouette of Tyrannus Basilton Pitch, backlit by a million stars.

 

 

* Quotation from Gemma T. Leslie, _The Eighth Dance_ (in Rainbow Rowell's _Fangirl_ , page 429)

 


	7. The Rescues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lot of people need saving. SnowBaz heroism and shirt-cuffing.

He was lying on the small lawn just outside the doors to the ballroom, and Baz was looming close over him with the stars shining in his hungry grey eyes and his fangs out and that should have been terrifying but instead the blood surged in Simon's body and he remembered the crushing powerlessness and said, “Fuck, Baz. You scared me in there,”

Seeing him alert, Baz pushed abruptly upright and away from Simon. “You fucking shit. He was mine, Snow. I would've had him.”

“He would've had you, you mean.”

“I mean I had a sodding chance.”

“You didn't.” Simon dared to look at the imposing hulk of the ballroom. You could _see_ it sag without the magic that knit everything together.

Following Simon's gaze, Baz looked too. For what felt like a long time, Baz looked across Simon to the hideous heap of stone that had just hours before been Simon's favorite place, Watford, that now leered at them like a prison. The rising moon threw blinding shadows across its cobbled face. Even from across the lawn, Simon felt the pull—like gravity, like love—of the building's ponderous despair.

“They're all trapped, aren't they?” Simon finally asked.

Baz nodded. “Yes. But I doubt it can hurt them like it hurt you, Snow.” He ripped up a handful of lawn close to Simon's face. No irony, no wrath. For the first time, Simon thought, Baz looked like the one being hunted.

“Baz?”

“If I hadn't...” Baz broke off, stared at the hole he'd torn in the grass.

“I'd be dead.”

“Right.”

“Baz? Will you help me?”

* * *

They had to get the others out. Even if Baz was right, even if they could still breathe in the Humdrum's keep, Simon shuddered to imagine his friends crushed beneath that terrible, unmagical power.

Baz was looking at him strangely, his lip twitching.

“What?” Simon demanded, annoyed. “What am I doing wrong now?”

“You're bleeding.”

Simon reached up to feel the blood now, dripping from the side of his forehead. “It's not bad, is it?”

Baz appraised the wound from afar, suddenly shy. “No, it'll coagulate.”

Oh, Simon thought. _Oh. Oh Baz._ “Do you want to taste...”

He saw Baz eye his forehead too long, lean in to smell, then yank himself away.

“No,” he said coldly. “Go dress it.”

Stung, Simon turned away. He'd felt such affection from Baz a minute ago. He'd meant the invitation, hadn't meant to tease him. Didn't Baz know that? Hadn't he wanted it too? Then he realized: Crowley, Baz wasn't mad at _him_ ; Baz didn't trust _himself_.

* * *

In the gardener's shed, they found an emergency kit, bundle of thick rope, some wooden pallets that would serve as makeshift sleds, and a rumpled and very warm Carys and Fiona, who only pulled away from each other when Simon tapped one on the shoulder to ask if either knew First Aid.

The girls had missed everything, even the gripping chill of the Humdrum that you could feel like ice in your guts, so wrapped up they'd been in each other. ("I suppose I'm owed a _bit_ of the credit," Baz said, arching an eyebrow in appreciation of his go-between skill, and Fi and Carys smiled guiltily but did not—Whitman be praised—make any further attempts on his person.)

Fiona helped Simon wash at the spigot, then applied a stinging antiseptic and thick gauze bandages. Baz averted his eyes and tried to explain, with typical Baz restraint that read like typical Baz pomposity, what had happened and what needed to come next.

* * *

With Baz inside lifting the limp bodies and a great deal of rope-pulling from Simon and the girls outside, the lawn slowly filled with bedraggled and gulping ballgoers regaining consciousness.

It was laborious, painstaking work—just being within rope's length of the dance floor filled Simon with an empty ache that he could only counter with the strain of muscle and hot breath and blood. He flung away the tail-coat and tie, cuffed his shirtsleeves, and pulled and pulled.

When Baz finally staggered out after the last sledge of dancers, he looked close to collapse. Despite his superhuman strength, he, too, had nearly succumbed to the Humdrum's influence.

Simon saw him coming and jumped up from Penny, who'd been one of the last out, and who'd awoken spitting mad in equal parts at her ignorance and impotence in the face of the Humdrum's attack.

“Sorry,” he said, patting her shoulder, and he knew if she faulted him for it, she'd get over it quick. Plus, Osiris was right there clutching his chest like he'd been in a vise, and as Simon well knew, if anything could set Penelope to rights, it was helping someone in need.

He rushed toward a Baz who looked so different that he'd hardly have recognized him if they hadn't slept mere feet apart for the last seven years. He looked hollow, gaunt, arms and legs even longer than usual, as though the effort of all that lifting had physically altered him.

His eyes were wild and directionless, fangs gleaming dully in the darkness, and inside of Simon, a chasm of fear erupted. Had it been too much to bear? Had the Humdrum defeated the parts of Baz that mattered most to him—the wry, needy, earnest parts that made their belonging real?

Then he saw Baz see him.

It wasn't so much like the spark of a match lighting as like the second or third pump into a neglected bicycle's tyre when it suddenly starts to puff and you know it's going to hold air. He still hobbled, and his face still looked like a man who's been left for dead in a cave, but his eyelids lifted for a second and Simon could almost believe it was at the sight of _him_ , sweat-drenched and with forearm and neck muscles bulging from his ruin of a white shirt.

“Really, Snow?” Baz breathed roughly. “Do you even know what 'full dress' _means_?” And then his feet failed him and Simon was there with broad shoulders and an arm around his back and together, they moved as far from the Humdrum as they could.


	8. The Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recovery takes time, especially when there's no more magic.

“What do you need?” Simon asked.

“Just time, Snow.” It was Baz's turn to recover on the lawn, this time on the far end where there weren't many people to disturb them—and it seemed like everyone was giving them wide berth anyway, except that Agatha had come to say that people would be overnighting in the various outbuildings since the school was uninhabitable, and did they want her to square away some space for them?

Simon had half-heartedly offered to come help with arrangements, but Baz had growled, and Agatha had insisted that setting up a few pallets for them was really the least she could do.

Simon watched Baz and Baz watched the sky, and sometimes cast his eyes toward Simon with a frankness that was almost tender, a glance like a confession.

After a long while, Baz said, “You were right. I couldn't have killed him.”

“No one could.”

“No, I mean, _I_ couldn't, Snow.” Baz's face, white as moonlight, shone up at him. “I'm not daft enough to think it's _actually_ you, but it's still you, isn't it?”

Simon's chest compressed, and fuck it, he heard everything Baz was and wasn't saying, and he couldn't tolerate empty space between them any longer. Fiercely, he pulled Baz to sitting by the black lapels that lined Baz's slender front.

“And that's why I'm the one who should have to fucking face it. Look what a mess I've made thus far—” He gestured to the scattered people in the gardens, refugees from the black hole of their school. “I hate that I've dragged you in.”

Baz raised a hand to Simon's. His thumb rubbed slow scrollwork into the back of Simon's fist.

“Want a secret, Snow?” The voice was light, mocking—Simon had never known how much he could miss that sound. “I would've done you worse.”

Looking in his glistening eyes, Simon remembered earlier when he had come to, with Baz's fangs so close and, mingled with the fear, a palpable desire. It was still there, he realized. The want on Baz's face couldn't have been more nakedly apparent if he'd run his tongue across his teeth.

Crowley, Simon would pay good money to watch Baz lick his teeth.

“If you were about to die," Baz murmured, almost to himself. "I was watching. I was _ready_. But I didn't know if you would want...”

Simon cut him off. The idea was too much; it was terrifying and intoxicating. “You have my permission." _Shit, he'd better clarify._ "I mean, on the extremely limited condition that I'm about to die.”

The light reflecting in Baz's eyes was so bright that Simon couldn't read them, but he didn't care anymore. He pulled himself to Baz, Baz to him, till that was Baz's firm lower lip between his and _his_ teeth Baz was licking and he lost everything but the vast night and the heat of their mouths.

But then—gods, this again?—Baz shoved him away and sprang shakily to his feet.

“Your head. Again. I can't handle it.” Baz stepped backward, keeping a haunted distance. “Let's go find our rooms.”

Dizzy with want and a fast ascent of his own, Simon reached for his head again. His hand came away from the bandage wet with blood. The night's exertion had kept blood pumping through the wound; it ran through the gauze and down his cheek.

He turned back to the grim-faced Baz. “I'll go wash,” he said, extending his hand, palm-up, like a sacrificial offering, “but first, two things: One: You _can_ handle it, Baz, you can handle fucking _anything_ ; and Two: You've earned it.”

The raw hunger when Baz looked at his bloodstained hand had nothing on what Simon felt when Baz's tongue followed, one tentative, shivering lick along the length of Simon's index finger.

 _No one_ , Simon thought, watching his own stricken lust mirrored on the face of his blood-drunk roommate, _could call this tender_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keep reading for more of the Watford Without Watford series!


End file.
